For our 5 Questions series, we ask creative professionals five questions about the nature of creation and collaboration. This week we spoke with fashion designer and creative consultant, Geren Lockhart. The child of two artists, Geren grew up between New York City and the California Bay Area, with both places serving as a major influence over her long running fashion label, Geren Ford. Though she closed the label in 2013, Geren still keeps herself busy as a consultant for fashion and design businesses, and managing her 3 blogs, Geren Lockhart, Born Packed, and Art Brat. Despite her relentlessly busy schedule, Geren recently wrote to us during a rare moment at home in the Hollywood Hills to talk about growing up in the art scene of the 1970s and 80s, her time at Geren Ford, and how constant travel has shaped her life.

IMAGES FROM THIS ARTICLE

From the Geren Ford Fall 2012 Collection

From the Geren Ford Fall 2012 Collection

From the Geren Ford Fall 2012 Collection

Geren with her Father in 1973

From the Geren Ford Holiday 2009 Collection

From the Geren Ford Holiday 2009 Collection

From the Geren Ford Holiday 2009 Collection

From the Geren Ford Holiday 2009 Collection

From the Geren Ford Spring 2010 Collection

From the Geren Ford Spring 2010 Collection

From the Geren Ford Spring 2010 Collection

Behind the Scenes for the Geren Ford Spring 2010 Collection

Behind the Scenes for the Geren Ford Spring 2010 Collection

From the Geren Ford Spring 2013 Collection

From the Geren Ford Spring 2013 Collection

From the Geren Ford Spring 2013 Collection

1. LASTBLOG: Where do you go for inspiration?

Geren Lockhart: I travel for inspiration. Being an only child who grew up with a father based in New York City and a mother based in Northern California, travel started early for me. For me, the beauty of travel is that I get a chance to pay attention to everything around me in a way I don’t when day to day responsibilities take hold. It might be something as small as the elevator button of a building in Hong Kong that inspires a snap for a new collection to something as big as the first moment I laid eyes on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy and the colors, and smells and noise which will inspire in a much more sweeping way.

From Geren Ford’s Spring 2010 Collection.

2. LASTBLOG: Walk us through one of your favorite things you’ve created.

GL: If I have to pick one thing I think so far it would be the brand that I founded and ran for over a decade, Geren Ford. It is so far the most personal thing I have created. It grew out of the life that grew out of the childhood, and the travel and it was a wonderful, scary, intense, long, successful ride that taught me more than anything I’ve ever done. I sketched every design and oversaw the running of every aspect of the brand, so it was a very full-time commitment during my 30s.

“…the beauty of travel is that I get a chance to pay attention to everything around me in a way I don’t when day to day responsibilities take hold.” – Geren Lockhart

3. LASTBLOG: What is the value of collaboration?

GL: For me creation isn’t possible without collaboration. We need each other and can’t be the best at everything. For the type of creating I did and that I now do the end product is served by there being a collaborative team of people involved, it’s always better to have it be bigger than just yourself.

Geren with her Father in 1973

4. LASTBLOG: Tell us about your most memorable collaboration to date.

GL: The most important and memorable collaboration for me is one that I don’t think I knew was happening while it was. It would be with my self-taught painter father who imparted creative freedom to me at a young age and then fostered access to knowledge and a creative world that made me who I am today. It was a collaboration because it wasn’t teaching it was a balance between interest and access and experience. He provided the experience and then allowed me to take it in and make it my own. I feel very lucky to have had the luck to be protected, but free at the same time while I was forming my creative identity.

“… it wasn’t teaching it was a balance between interest and access and experience.” – Geren Lockhart

5. LASTBLOG: Who would you like to collaborate with, past or present? Why?

GL: YSL, he was a storytelling genius and a delicate creative soul with the best taste in the world!